res, the part sustained by the
noosers can bear no comparison with the address and daring displayed by
the _picador_ and _matador_ in a Spanish bull-fight. They certainly
possessed great quickness of eye in watching the slightest movement of
the elephant, and great expertness in flinging the noose over its foot
and attaching it firmly before the animal could tear it off with its
trunk; but in all this they had the cover of the decoys to conceal them;
and their shelter behind which to retreat. Apart from the services
which, from their prodigious strength, the tame elephants are alone
capable of rendering, in dragging out and securing the captives, it is
perfectly obvious that without their co-operation the utmost prowess and
dexterity of the hunters would not avail them, unsupported, to enter the
corral and ensnare and lead out a single captive.

Of the two tiny elephants which were entrapped, one was about ten months
old, the other somewhat more. The smaller one had a little bolt head
covered with woolly brown hair, and was the most amusing and interesting
miniature imaginable. Both kept constantly with the herd, trotting after
them in every charge; when the others stood at rest they ran in and out
between the legs of the older ones; and not their own mothers alone, but
every female in the group caressed them in turn.

The dam of the youngest was the second elephant singled out by the
noosers, and as she was dragged along by the decoys, the little creature
kept by her side till she was drawn close to the fatal tree. The men at
first were rather amused than otherwise by its anger; but they found
that it would not permit them to place the second noose upon its mother;
it ran between her and them, it tried to seize the rope, it pushed them
and struck them with its little trunk, till they were forced to drive it
back to the herd. It retreated slowly, shouting all the way, and pausing
at every step to look back. It then attached itself to the largest
female remaining in the group, and placed itself across her forelegs,
whilst she hung down her trunk over its side and soothed and caressed
it. Here it continued moaning and lamenting; till the noosers had left
off securing its mother, when it instantly returned to her side; but as
it became troublesome again, attacking every one who passed, it was at
last tied up by a rope to an adjoining tree, to which the other young
one was also tied. The second little one, equally with its